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Get In My Belly!

What a difference 4 months can make! Documenting your progress with pictures is so important, even if you are the only one that ever sees them. You might not notice any changes over the course of a month, which might lead to discouragement or a sense of failure and disappointment. However, when you put a picture side by side, a month apart, you might just amaze yourself!

I’m so very late with this post, I meant to post last Tuesday…but life. Better late than never though…right? We started homeschooling my 11 year old son 2 weeks ago, and I’m still trying to figure out both our schedules, but that’s a blog post for another time. In my blog post, Believing Is Achieving, I disclosed that one of my major goals for 2017 was to plan and prep meals more consistently and eat out less. So far so good, but the year is young. One of the products I purchased for myself that has been a game changer in our household – meal prep containers.

Seriously, these cost me $20 for a pack of 20 and they have been working awesome for us. My husband can pre-pack his lunches with either leftovers or I prep some meat and veggies for the week. It makes it so much easier to grab something healthy for lunch or snack and resist the temptation to eat out because I’m too tired or busy to cook/make something. I ordered mine thru Amazon, but I’m sure you could find them anywhere. I prefer the 3 way containers, but they also come in 2.

I can’t stress this enough. If you remember nothing else that I ever say, remember these 2 things:

Throw out your scale! DO IT!

EAT EAT EAT – stop dieting

I’m an emotional eater. I eat when I’m upset, bored, lonely, happy, angry, etc… You get the picture. I shared with my nutritionist that I don’t actually remember the last time I was truly HUNGRY. Dieting just made me feel deprived and angry. Angry at what I perceived to be my failings. Anger that I couldn’t be the kind of person to eat whatever I wanted, never exercise and stay magically thin and fit. Anger led to binge eating, losing control and hating myself. A vicious cycle I couldn’t seem to break. One of the key things my nutritionist and therapist taught me was that food isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s a mantra I live by now.

FOOD ISN’T INHERENTLY GOOD OR BAD

It’s about choices. Some foods are better for you. They have better benefits. I feel better when I eat them. Sometimes you just need that slice of cake or that piece of pie or bowl of ice cream. My life is now a series of choices. I know that an apple is better for me than a ding dong. I know I need to fuel my body. Once I changed my mindset, and food wasn’t a series of things I wasn’t ALLOWED to eat, my eating habits improved. Improving my eating habits, filling my plate with nutritiously dense foods, fueled my body in ways that I could FEEL. I found myself with more energy, both physical and mental. My moods improved. I wasn’t constantly filled with self-loathing. I didn’t feel like a failure when I reached for the mega-stuffed Oreo. I enjoyed the heck out of that Oreo, but I stopped at 1, instead of eating 6 or more. I started to learn to love myself. It’s a process, one in which I’m still evolving. I’ve found new confidence and joy in my body and what it can do now that it couldn’t do before at almost 300 pounds.

I’m willing to put myself out there and be vulnerable in sharing my journey. If even one person understands that they are not alone, that I understand how they feel and that I am here to inspire, motivate or just love them through it, then putting myself out here – the good, the bad and the ugly – will have all been worth it. My goal is health. Healthy looks different on everyone, and I think that is beautiful. I think YOU are beautiful. I don’t have a goal weight. I just have goals. Society doesn’t dictate what beautiful means to me, I define it for myself and I embrace every scar, every stretch mark, every fabulous flaw because it’s the roadmap in my journey, in my beautiful life.

So what do I eat?

Snacks

A big part of my daily nutrition comes in the form of Shakeology by Beachbody. I usually drink one as my afternoon snack. The long hours between lunch and dinner are my most vulnerable. If I’m going to reach for the Oreo or bag of Doritos, it’s during the interminable mid-afternoon. I prefer the chocolate flavor. It curbs my cravings, gives me a boost of energy to finish the day strong and fills me up till dinner.

I also enjoy fruit, granola and trail mix for my snacking pleasure. I’m a creature of habit, so I’ll typically have the same breakfast, lunch and snacks every day for weeks until I get bored, then I change things up.

BREAKFAST

This is an easy one, because I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning.

And coffee.

Lots and lots of coffee.

And eggs. I love eggs.

I vary what I put in my omelets, but I love me some eggs for breakfast. I always add spinach, I’m not a huge vegetable lover, so I get them in however and whenever I can. I might add turkey sausage or diced ham. I’ll throw in some peppers and onions, a little cheese, different kinds every week. Sometimes I add an avocado or fruit on the side.

And yes I eat the whole egg. Yolk and all.

Lunch

Part of my meal prep for the week is grilling some chicken for easy go-to lunch choices during the week.

A recent favorite of mine is the turkey, avocado and red pepper roll up! So good! And no I’m not anti-bread. I LOVE bread. It’s important to meet my protein goals every day, and that’s harder to do if I fill up on carbs, as lovely as they are and as much as I love them.

Another lunch favorite is the quesadilla. I eat this one quite a bit, it’s easy and I love a hot lunch. I’ll add grilled chicken, spinach and peppers/onions to a whole wheat tortilla, sometimes throwing in some cheese or avocado. The quesadilla is great because it’s a versatile choice, there are so many directions and iterations you could try to shake things up if you get bored easily with food.

DINNER WINNER OF THE WEEK

First, I will share my list of favorite websites that I use religiously for recipes/ideas when I’m not using Pinterest. Pinterest is pretty much my one-stop shop, but these websites are beautiful and have deliciously wonderful recipes.

Our favorite dinner last week came from How Sweet It Is. It wasn’t too difficult to make, I did throw in some cheats and I was able to prep most of it ahead of time to reduce actual cooking time. It was a hit with the family, even the man-child, and he’s impossible to please these days. It tasted even better reheated the next day. I can’t wait to make it again!

I mean seriously, how good does this look? And I’m usually a Pinterest fail, so when my food (or project) comes out actually looking very similar to the fancy picture, I’m super stoked! Even admiring how pretty it looked, I was still afraid to taste it. I would have curled in the fetal position, crying for days, if it hadn’t tasted as good as it looked. Luckily, it did! Here is the actual recipe. I didn’t grill corn on the cob and shave it off, that’s too much work for me. I just bought the Del Monte Fire Roasted Corn (yes, in the can). I made the bacon ahead of time, crumbled it up and stored for later use. I also kept the grease in a bowl and reheated it for cooking per the instructions.

A small serving of this tasty dish filled me up, but not in that uncomfortable food baby belly wear elastic pants kinda way. I love it when a recipe comes together from kitchen to table like this one did for me. It’s just the best feeling, especially when you aren’t the best cook in the world, like myself.

Anyway, I hope some or all of my suggestions work for you and your family. Meal prepping really does help control poor eating habits and choices, not to mention all the money we’ve been saving not eating out. It takes a bit of organization, planning and prepping but it’s so very worth it. Try it!